


silver spoon (honey, try platinum)

by sarcastic_fina



Series: daughter dearest [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Awesome Darcy Lewis, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, F/M, Gen, Tony stark is a good father
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4844957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcastic_fina/pseuds/sarcastic_fina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Making something and raising someone are very different things, honey." // Tony Stark becomes a father at nineteen. And his life is never quite the same after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	silver spoon (honey, try platinum)

i.

**_1989_ **

"Pregnant."

Tony repeats it to himself three times over, trying to meld the idea with reality.

"Pregnant." He nods, fiddling with a wrench.

DUM-E whirs behind him, swinging its arm at nothing in particular, but, for all intents and purposes, looking as confused and worried as Tony is on the inside.

"All right. Calm down. We can handle this."

DUM-E's arm drops dramatically and Tony rolls his eyes. "Don't take that tone with me. You're about to be a big brother. Act like it."

DUM-E perks up, but then wheels away quickly.

"Oh, ha-ha, real funny. You can't run from this kind of responsibility…" He scowls, banging his wrench down on the desk in front of him. With a sigh, he places his hands down and closes his eyes.

" _Pregnant_."

* * *

 

Tony doesn't need to be drunk to sit through one of his father's rants – he's been through many at this point – but he thinks it would help. Unfortunately, his mother is between him and his father's drink cart, so that is a no go. There's always later.

Drunk or not, he apparently thinks snark is the way to go. "Shouldn't you be happy? I'm continuing the Stark line, and I'll be young enough to actually pay attention to the little tyke. That's a fair bit better than you did."

His mother flinches, and he has exactly 10 seconds to feel the regret of his statement. But then his father is snapping back at him, "You're  _nineteen_ , Anthony. You're not old enough to have a child. You can barely take care of yourself."

He scoffs. "Patently untrue. I've managed this long, haven't I?"

"You can't skate by on parenthood like you have everything else."

He sneers at that. " _You'd_ know."

Howard shakes his head, heaving a long-suffering sigh that Tony has come to understand is just  _brimming_ with disappointment. Obviously, it was one he used with his son  _often_.

"I think we all need a moment to think about this," Maria says then, drawing the attention to her. "It's a lot to take in and there's a lot that needs to be decided—"

"What's to decide? You're going to have a grandchild in a few months.  _Mazel Tov_."

She casts him a quelling look, that he ducks his eyes to avoid. "We'll talk about this more tomorrow. Until then, I think everyone needs to take some time and really  _think_ about what this means, what kind of changes will be coming."

Howard looks like he wants to argue, but his wife is giving him  _the look_ , so he ducks his eyes too.

 _Like father, like son_ , Tony thinks bitterly.

With a sharp huff, Howard leaves the room, not bothering to look at Tony, his disapproval already well made.

Maria lingers, staring at him a long moment. "Your father might have gone about this the wrong way, but he only wants to be sure you're really thinking this through…" She walks toward him slowly, quietly, like she's floating on air. "A child is a big responsibility, especially when you're not much more than a child yourself."

He scowls at that. "I'm not a  _kid_."

"You're nineteen. You're young and stubborn and you don't always think about the consequences of your actions. Children need stability and love and—"

"I can be what this child needs," he bites out, shaky and angry and defensive. "I  _will_ be."

Maria lets out a long, quiet sigh, and takes a seat on the coffee table in front of him. She takes his hands in hers, her own slim and soft and perfectly manicured. "It's not that I doubt you will love this child. It's that I want you to be sure that this is what you want. Who you want to be." She pauses a moment before she squeezes his hands. "I love your father. I have from the moment I met him. And he is a brilliant, brilliant man. But he… He's never been the kind of father that I wanted for you, or that you deserved. I know that. And I think he knows that too. He's not used to failure and how he expresses it…" 

Her eyes turn away, hollow for a moment, but then she shakes her head. "What I'm trying to say is that this child cannot make up for your own childhood. I failed you, Anthony.  _We_ failed you in many ways. But this, this may not be what you think it will be. Children take time and energy and focus. Instead of building things, you'll be forced to change diapers and wake up at the tiniest noise and to spend every waking moment making sure they're okay and healthy and happy… And if you're not ready to do that, if you can't put them first, then I think you should really reconsider whether or not you truly think this child will benefit from having you in its life."

His chin is shaking and his heart is thudding quick and hard in his chest. "It's mine.  _Mom_. It's my child. I—I made it."

"Making something and raising someone are very different things, honey." She raises her hand, palm pressed to his cheek, and then stands. "I just want you to think this through, that's all."

With that, she swans out of the room, elegant and graceful as ever.

Tony stares at the floor, his fingers twitching. Alone as he is, it wouldn't be difficult to raid his father's drink cart, to drown his sorrows until they're hazy and distant. But then his mother's words rush over him, and he gets up, leaves the room and the alcohol behind. Maybe it's just one moment, one brief flash of maturity, but he chooses not to indulge or escape. Instead, he goes to his room, and he  _thinks_.

* * *

 

Tony paces, moving from one end of the room to the other. “I’m gonna do it. I know you don’t think I can. You have every reason to think that. But you’re wrong. This kid. This... This baby, it’s  _mine_. And I’m going to be there, I’m going to raise it. All the diapers, the late-night feeding sessions, the awkward stages, the terrible prom photos, all of it. I’m going to be there to get them through every up and down.”  He knows he’s agitated and defensive and his hands are shaking a little bit, but he’s serious. He needs them to know that. 

“You’re sure?” his mother asks, very quiet and serious. 

He turns to look at her, lifts his chin and takes a deep breath. “It’s a girl. I’m having a little girl.” 

His mother hugs him, wraps him tight in her arms and draws his head to her shoulder, fingers skimming soothingly through his hair. He’ll deny he clings to her, but he does. 

Howard doesn’t leave his seat on the sofa, doesn’t even make direct eye contact. But that’s fine. He doesn’t have to look at Tony. He just has to hear him. 

* * *

 

Darcy Marie Lewis is born on June 13th at 9:32 pm.

Tony tries to be in the delivery room, he really does. He is unceremoniously kicked out after he makes one too many comments about how questionable the hospital is and whether or not it's too late to helicopter his baby momma, ("stop calling me that or I will staple your toes to your forehead!") to somewhere better. Christina is under a lot of stress, so he doesn't hold that against her, besides, she's bringing his spawn into the world, so he's not eager to rock the boat too much. In any case, Darcy is born, all 8 pounds, 4 ounces of her, and she is a loud, red, wrinkly little bean of a thing. He falls in love immediately, and ungracefully. Christina will forever point out that he absolutely cried, and he will deny it for just as long.

Truthfully, he does tear up, because Darcy is his, and he is hers, and there's a moment, when he's holding her, that everything just sort of slides into place. Of course, this is before he spends the next eight months sleeping on Christina's couch, waking up at obscene hours of the night, and changing diapers that make him gag just on memory alone. But in that moment, there is only him and his daughter, and everything is right and beautiful in the world.

His mother bustles into the room a minute later and steals her granddaughter right out of his arms, cooing and rocking her. She doesn't bother hiding her tears, and her smile is wider than he's ever seen it. For all that she told him to be careful and think things through, he can see she's just as in love with Darcy as he is.

His father keeps his distance at first, staying in the hallway and then the doorway and then taking calculated steps forward, muttering under his breath about traffic and how the hospital clearly needed upgrades. But eventually, he's standing right behind his wife, peering down at his squirming granddaughter with something that could aptly be called interest, or, at the very least, curiosity. Maria very abruptly puts Darcy in Howard's arms, and, though Tony flinches, Howard does have some knowledge of how to hold a child.

"I held you once or twice in your life, you know," he tells Tony snarkily.

Tony bites back the 'could've fooled me' because this is not the time. He's never really cared for when the time is, but this day, this moment, matters, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Howard bounces Darcy in his arms, who peers up at him with the same level of curiosity, and while Howard doesn't moon over her like Tony's sure both he and his mother did, there's something there, a spark at least, that shows he might just be a little more enamored with the idea of being a grandfather than he has been in the last few months. And then Darcy's face scrunches up and the tears start and Howard very quickly hands her back over to Tony. But he doesn't mind, he was starting to miss her anyway, and he coos down at her, rubbing her back delicately, until she falls back into a comfortably half-sleeping state.

It won't always be that easy, he knows. Not even close. But for right now, it is, and he's content to revel in it.

* * *

 

Rhodey doesn't say anything for a full minute when he walks into his apartment to find Tony Stark sitting on his couch wearing Versace sunglasses and feeding a five month old baby from a bottle. "Surprise," Tony announces, grinning.

Rhodey blinks at him. "Did we have a night of passion together that I don't remember?"

"Don't be silly. Look at how cute she is; she's clearly not yours. I'll apologize for my infidelity later. In the meantime…" He waves down at her. "Darcy Lewis, meet Uncle Rhodey."

"Oh, no, no, no…" Rhodey waves his hands quickly. "I'm not qualified for uncle duty, no way."

"You have three older brothers. You were  _born_ for uncle duty," Tony dismisses with a sniff. "And anyway, my progeny will be far more entertaining."

Darcy takes that moment to burp, and Tony smiles at her like she just invented gravity.

"See? Already outshining everyone her age."

Rhodey sighs, long and loud, but eventually he walks over, dragging a chair with him, and takes a seat directly in front of them. He steeples his hands together and taps his fingers against his lips. "She's definitely yours?"

"There was a DNA test, if that's what you're asking. Dad was pretty adamant about that." He shrugs. "She's mine. Can't you tell?"

Darcy looks up at Rhodey then and pushes the bottle away from her mouth rather aggressively. She eyes Rhodey with a peculiarly focused eye, and then raises her arms, hands opening and closing demandingly. "See. She likes you." Tony hands her over, ignoring Rhodey's protests, and Darcy lets out a happy hum, wiggling on Rhodey's lap as she leans into the crook of his elbow.

She has springy brown curls on top of her head and bright blue eyes. No teeth, all gums, she's drooling and making noises, and constantly kicking her arms and legs.

"I'm starting to see the resemblance," Rhodey says drolly.

"Great." Tony claps his hands. "So. Uncle duty. What are the chances that you becoming a part of the Air Force is going to interfere with that?"

Rhodey rolls his eyes. "I'm not dropping out to uncle your daughter."

"Why? It comes with steady pay, a stipend for weekend leisure, full dental and medical… I could go on."

Snorting, Rhodey merely shakes his head. "You're not paying me to be in your kid's life. I'll be there because I want to. And because apparently you'll just break into my apartment and make it happen anyway."

Tony smirks, not the least bit sorry for his actions.

With a sigh, Rhodey looks down at the little girl in his lap. "Your life's going to be interesting, I can promise you that much."

Darcy blows a drool bubble at him; she is her father's daughter.

* * *

 

**_1990_ **

As it turns out, Howard is more than a little enamored with Darcy, and his next three inventions are solely focused on her safety and happiness. Her favorite is the bouncy chair that hangs in the doorway of the lab so he can keep an eye on her while he's working, it's mechanical and has little gadgets for her to play with, or to take apart and try to put back together. Tony's pretty sure there's one in every major room.

For the most part, Darcy lives with Christina, who graciously lets him stay over to spend as much time with their daughter as he can. He and Christina aren't together. But he respects her and she seems to understand how earnest he is in being a part of his daughter's life. And he is. He's been careful about keeping it out of the media because he doesn't want her to grow up like he did, stuck in a spotlight that follows her through every up and down. Christina doesn't want that either. She's just finishing up her last year of university and she doesn't want her life plastered all over magazine covers. On this, they agree. On other things, not always.

Christina is an independent person; she doesn't want romance or relationships. She wants to have a career and be a mom and maintain a civil friendship with him. She has her own life and her own ambitions and the only reason he even factors into them is because they drunkenly got caught up one night at a college party and she'd felt it was only right to at least let him know he had a kid out there. She hadn't been looking for money or support; she'd been pretty content to just take the situation as it came. But he wanted in, and he'd gotten his wish.

Darcy visits Stark Mansion on weekends, where a good portion of her time is spent on Maria's hip or watching her grandfather push the barriers of science. She sees her dad all the time, so she's noticeably more excited when her grandparents are there to coo over her. She's especially close with Maria, who she snuggles up to whenever possible, and will bury her face in  _RiRi_ 's hair if she's feeling shy. Maria is in her glory; she swamps Darcy in gifts, from clothes to toys to her own bedroom with plush pillows and bright wallpaper. Tony is sure that she's the most spoiled baby on the face of the planet and he's not complaining.

Howard makes her a pair of work glasses and puts them on her as soon as she arrives. He plucks her from Maria's hip and says, "Ahh, my assistant is here. C'mon, Lovebug, you can make sure Grandpa doesn't set fire to Grandma RiRi's house… again."

"Howard Stark, don't you dare start a fire around that little girl!"

"Fires happen, honey. No way around it."

They bicker as they walk down the hall, a giggling Darcy looking between them, and Tony merely shrugs, following after them.

* * *

 

It's exactly four days after Darcy's first birthday that Howard invites into the study for a  _talk._ Later, should anyone ask, he'll say there was a lot of alcohol involved and his memory is a little fuzzy, but he remembers every word.

Howard hands him a glass of bourbon; he puts ice in Tony's but never in his own because he says it'll only water down perfection. Tony doesn't drink his; he's been limiting himself on alcohol since Darcy and he'd already had a glass of wine with dinner. Howard either doesn't notice or doesn't say anything about it, and Tony's pretty sure he only has his own glass of bourbon as a comfort measure.

"She's a bright kid," he says, with little to no build up. "Takes after us in that regard, at least."

Tony's uncomfortable with 'earnest Howard' and his first instinct is to say he hopes that's  _all_ she takes from them, because complicated family relations aren't something he wants to have with his daughter. But he bites back on the dig, because he knows it won't help things, and hell, maybe he's maturing a little bit. Maybe.

"You, uh, you surprised me. How good you are with her. Guess I didn't put enough stock in you." He sighs, hand tucked into the pocket of his pants. "You hafta understand… I spent most of my life free and single, no wife or kid, nothing but the work mattered to me much. By the time you and your mother were part of my life, I was set in my ways, didn't know how to break 'em, wasn't even sure I should most'a the time. And that's… I regret that. I do. Made some mistakes along the way, things I can't take back. Things were done and said that I'm not proud of." He sighs then, frowning at the carpet a long moment. "What I'm trying to say here is… This last year, you've proven me wrong. You're a good father, Anthony. And I hope you keep it up."

There were no emotional hugs or tears or anything of the like, because that wasn't Howard's style and Tony will forever deny that's what he wanted. But the apology, the recognition, it helps.

* * *

 

When Darcy learns to crawl, it becomes Tony's on-going nightmare. He covers every sharp edge and views the whole house as one giant death trap.

Howard merely shakes his head. "Can't keep her safe from everything. Accidents happen, kids fall, they scrape their knees, bump their heads, it's all part of growing up."

Tony can handle scraped knees and bumped heads, what he can't handle is the sound his daughter makes when she's hurt. The way she cries, how she comes to him, sniffling, grabbing at his hands, murmuring, "Daddy, daddy," needing him to soothe it all away. He cleans her up and he kisses her boo-boos and he puts Disney themed band-aids wherever necessary. And some other unnecessary places because she just likes them and so what if he keeps buying band-aids just for her to wear them like accessories? He has money to spare. But there's still a physical ache, that he didn't get to her in time, didn't save her from that pain, and that's what he wants to avoid. It doesn't matter that Darcy shakes it off mere minutes after it happened, running back into the fray without a care in the world, it sticks with  _him_.

"Stubbed toes and bruises are a part of life, just be there to make them better," his mother tells him, kissing the top of his head like he's the child in this equation.

But he likes it, he's twenty-two years old and he's got a little girl with a Mickey Mouse band-aid on her cheek, because she thinks it goes with her outfit, and he still wants his mom to tell him everything is going to be okay.

* * *

 

Darcy meets Peggy Carter on a bright Sunday afternoon. She's sitting in the grass, peering curiously at a lady bug that's landed on her knee, when Aunt Peggy takes a seat on a lawn chair beside him. She's just as beautiful and polished as she ever is and Tony glances at her from the corner of his eye, briefly worried she's going to lash out and tell him how foolish and irresponsible he's been.

Instead, she hums, tips her head to look at Darcy, and then offers a faint smile. "She'll make a fine SHIELD agent one day."

Tony sputters.

"What? Not big enough? SHIELD Director then." Peggy nods. "Yes. I can see it."

"No, no way, no chance is my little girl going into SHIELD." He frowns, shaking his head. "And don't let dad hear you saying that either; he'll latch on to the idea."

She laughs musically. "You know as well as I do that Howard has a love/hate relationship with SHIELD. If anything, he'll say she'll be far too busy running Stark Industries to even grace SHIELD with her presence." She sighs, but looks completely amused. "She looks happy."

"Only mode she's got. Happy and hungry."

Peggy's lips quirk and she turns to look at him thoughtfully. "You do too. Look happy that is."

He shrugs. "Guess fatherhood looks good on me."

"Oh, don't get me wrong. You look tired too. But… Perhaps this isn't the worst thing that could happen to you. Might even give you a little more direction."

Tony presses a hand to his chest rather dramatically. "Are you suggesting I had no direction?"

"I'm not suggesting anything. But you certainly looked like you weren't quite sure what you wanted to do with your life."

He purses his lips, because she wasn't wrong, but he doesn't feel like telling her so. "Yes, well, now we've established I'm going to be a dad. The best dad, in fact. There will be shrines in my honor."

Peggy rolls her eyes. "Oh, I'm sure." She looks back to Darcy then. "I have faith in you, you know. That you'll be a sight better than you father was at this…"

"That's the plan," he says with false carelessness.

Darcy lets out a squeal then and holds her arms out, demanding his attention. Tony makes his way over and plucks her up out of the grass, pressing a kiss to her cheek before she rubs her face all over his chest and bounces in his arm. He brings her back over and sits her on his knee.

Peggy leans forward, reaches out a hand and smiles as Darcy takes one of her fingers and squeezes.

"Well, looks like you're already on the right path," Peggy muses.

Tony won't admit it, but a flare of pride wells up in him at that.

* * *

 

**_1991_ **

"RiRi!" Darcy shouts, sitting on the edge of the counter, wearing more flour than there is in the bowl.

Tony blinks at her, then looks to his mother, who lifts her chin rather defensively. "We're baking."

"You… know how to do that?" He loves his mother, he does. But she has never been the homemaker type. Cooking, baking, she left that for the house staff. She loves hosting dinners, but he doesn't think he's ever seen her cook one.

"We were  _learning_." Maria sniffs at him, her hand on her waist. "Never too late to learn something."

"Sure. But learning is usually more… productive." He waves to Darcy, who is making piles of flour on the counter, and sneezing. "Whatcha makin', pumpkin?"

"Flour castle," she says very seriously, and then sneezes, sending flour everywhere, and her castle into ruins. She pouts at him, but it's hard to take seriously when she's covered in flour.

"We  _were_ attempting to make muffins." Maria frowns down at the cook book in front of her and then closes it with a snap. She picks Darcy up and places her on her hip, completely unhindered by the flour she's wearing. "We'll just have to get the cook to give us private lessons." With a shrug, she leaves the room, and Tony only hopes it's to wash up.

Now that the idea is in his head though, he leaves the house and takes a trip into town for some muffins. A variety basket, in fact. When he returns, both his mother and Darcy are lounging in the backyard in matching red bathrobes with wet hair and cucumbers on their eyes.

"Long day?" he muses.

Darcy plucks a cucumber from her eye and takes a bite out of it.

He hands her a blueberry muffin and she trades him her half-eaten cucumber for it. He eats the rest and takes a seat in the middle of her chair, she barely takes up any room on it, seeing as it's made for full-sized adults.

"We've decided to retire from baking," his mother tells him. "Far too competitive."

He grins, hands her a carrot muffin, and says, "What's next then?"

She peels the wrapper off. "We're taking suggestions currently. Darcy wants to conquer the flour castle building industry. Innovative, if nothing else."

"You want to build flour castles for life, Darce?" he asks her.

She's got muffin crumbs all over her mouth and blueberry smeared on her chin, but she nods up at him all the same. And he shrugs. "Okay." He's not sure how much of a niche it really is, but he's pretty sure, one day, there's going to be a competition and she will win it. Starks never lose, after all.

* * *

 

Darcy is introduced to the world when she is two years old. They don't really have much choice. There are a number of pictures from her second birthday party, and the family beefs up security as soon as they come out, because whoever took them was entirely too close and went unseen for far too long. The pictures show Darcy on Maria's hip while she coordinates the party, sitting atop Howard's shoulders as he heckles Rhodey and Tony while they play badminton, and sprawled in Tony's lap as she opens her presents. Tabloids jump on it and it becomes a media focus for quite some time, demanding all the details of who Darcy's mother is, why it was never made public, and whether his parents are ashamed of him becoming a father so young.

Tony tries to ignore it, tries to roll with the situation and pretend it isn't happening. Christina isn't happy; she wants her name kept out of everything and they do their best to make it happen. There's speculation, of course, whole articles dedicated to breaking down his romantic history and trying to figure out who might be the mother. His lawyers are quick to cover the bases and hide the birth certificate from public view. Eventually, of course, someone steps up and lets it out. Christina's apartment is flooded with reporters asking every crude question they can think of. While she doesn't want to, she eventually cracks and accepts his help in getting her a better apartment in a safer building where she won't be harassed daily. It also means there's an extra room for him to stay in when he wants to visit Darcy, so he tries to take the good with the bad.

The one good thing to come out of it is he doesn't have to hide as much anymore. He can go out with Darcy and not worry about who might see him. He knows now that keeping her comfortably out of view is impossible, but between his parents, Christina, and the lawyers, everybody works at keeping things as personal as they can. The attention slowly dies down to a dull road and, while he knows they will openly criticize every little thing from how young he is to whether he's holding her right at any given moment, he's just happy they came out on the other side of things mostly unscathed.

* * *

 

Howard and Maria Stark die on a winding road on December 19th. Their car is full of Christmas gifts for their son and their granddaughter. Whenever Tony thinks about it, about their last moments, the radio is playing and they're bickering over nothing in particular, a staple of their relationship. He hopes that's how it happened. That they were just simply so wrapped up in each other, that it was quick and painless, that they never felt a thing. That at least they had each other when they went. The reality, he'll find out much later, is not what he had hoped.

Tony and Darcy are waiting at the Long Island house, a Christmas tree lit up in the background. Darcy coos at the bright lights and claps her hands. She helped him hang every single ornament except for the star at the top; that, she always put on with the help of her grandpa. This is their early celebration, since Darcy will be spending Christmas with Christina and her parents back in California, and she's set up on the living room floor with a sippy cup of egg nog and a collection of sugar cookies she doesn't think he knows she's stashed, but he does.

The gifts under the tree are already over the top, even without the addition of Howard and Maria's. For Tony, things are going well. His relationship with his parents is on the mend, he's been balancing his life with Darcy and his work pretty well, and he's happy. He's really happy. He's also pretty sure the paparazzi are lamenting his sudden uptake in good behaviour, but he's not complaining. So he doesn't sleep as much as he'd like to. His work already provided him with an unhealthy sleep schedule. And he still has a lot of things to work out with his dad, but… There's time. Howard's been more open lately. More willing to talk about why he is the way he is and how sorry he is that it's affected his son and his wife. And if he's been drinking less, then Tony's noticed, even if he hasn't said anything. A sober Howard is a better Howard; that was a lesson he learned a long time ago, and one that's colored every conversation since.

It's just after 8 o'clock, Darcy is curled up in a blanket on the floor, a crumbled cookie still in hand and crumbs circling her mouth, when he gets the phone call. It's Obadiah that tells him, in a voice thick with apology. "I'm so sorry, Tony. They were on their way to you when there was an accident. The police weren't sure how to contact you, so they found me instead… There were no survivors, son."

After that, sound just ebbs away, nothing but an empty void of shock that makes him drop the phone back to the cradle and sit on the floor in stunned silence. He's not sure how long he's sitting there, but when tiny hands are wiping away tears he didn't know he was crying, he blinks his way to realty to find Darcy standing in front of him in her favorite purple pajamas, the one her Grandma RiRi picked out for her. There's a cartoon unicorn on the front with fake pink fur attached to mimic hair.

"Daddy, is you sad?" she murmured, her own lips trembling.

He sniffs, shakes his head, and pulls her into his lap. "It's okay. It's fine." He kisses the top of her head and hugs her close, rubbing a hand over her small back. "Daddy's… Daddy's got you, right? So how can he be sad?" He closes his eyes against the burn of tears and just holds her.

Darcy squirms, turning so she can wrap her tiny arms around him. She pats his back and says, "Shh… shh… Darcy is here."

And he laughs, heartbroken, and kisses her hair. He's not okay. He's far from okay. But he will be. He  _has_  to be.  _For her_.


End file.
